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Ultraviolet
For All Nails #138E: Ultraviolet by President Chester A. Arthur ---- :Prescott's Point, Angel Island, California. :4 June 1949 :1401 hours A moment of deafeaning clarity. The shard of glass, long and wicked as a knife through the bartender's neck. Escobar beginning to rise from the floor, blood on his face and hands. The pain and warmth in his head, the red and orange glow from across the street. And the screams. Always, the screams. ---- :Kaspar Hospital FN1 :Angel Island :1700 hours "I don't know a damn thing, Danny!" José Marquez was covered in blood and dust and pain. "I step into the letrina for five minutes and the fucking lugar goes ... oh, Madre de Dios, Danny." He switched to Spanish, too furious and terrified for his second language, cursing up a storm. Deputy Daniel Ortega reluctantly turned and left his old friend. Marquez wasn't badly hurt, but the doctors would watch him tonight. And for all that he wanted to stay, well ... his own grip on sanity was weak enough right now. The hallway was crowded; the press of doctors and nurses, the babble of medical English in the background, the smell of antiseptic and blood. Ortega was alone. I'm a policeman. I'm strong. The policeman es macho. El es roca ... "Dan." "Walker." It was the first time Ortega had ever called his boss Walker. The two lawmen found their way to an empty room and took their seats. Ortega looked Walker over; the younger man would have been pale but for the dust and sweat and blood. "You look like you should be colapso right now." "No, that's just the scalp wound and the painkillers." The sheriff reached up and gingerly touched his forehead. "Three stitches, and you know scalp wounds ... " He paused, almost shook his head, but settled for waving his hand. "Never mind." Bush looked up at Ortega. "Five dead in the building, two outside. Seven wounded, only one in the building." He shuddered. "It looks like ... three or four dina sticks, bundled together with some nails and thrown through the window. It bounced once, and then ... " He cursed, shook his head, then cursed louder at the motion. "It looks like all the wounded are going to pull through, gracias Dios . . . " "Euh, siete ... " Ortega stared at his hand, and at his hook. "Who would do this? I'd heard of bombings at other Party buildings, in Viva FN2 and San Juan, but those were always local people; and who here would do this?" He looked at Bush. "This is a small town; I grew up with these people. Many of them are asesinos, but not like this. Not nochemalers, even if they do send money to the Causa on the side ...." "We'll find them." Bush spoke with the fervent sureness of an unsure man. "I've got everyone who isn't digging through the rubble out canvassing the Redtown area for witnesses or evidence, even the part-time deputies. Juarez is at the harbor, looking for any new arrivals." He reached out and took his friend's hand. "This is a small town. We stick together." It was the first time he'd used we in referring to islanders. "Sheriff?" Juan Cobb Escobar looked subdued. It was a very ... strange look on the man, his hands dotted with plastic bandages from the glass he'd put his hands in. "Habla with me for a minute?" Bush paused, started to rise, then settled back down. No, I won't do your white boy private time. Not now. "Sure." He looked up at the Shore Patrol officer, who had the grace not to look displeased. "We're still going hunting tomorrow, but if you need my boys to help track this cabron down, canvass the area or do patrols..." Bush paused, surprised, then spoke. " ... No. Amateurs, on a job like this, it'll just ... attract attention. If your boys want to help with the clean-up, before or after your hunt, we could use some strong manos there." Escobar shrugged. "I'll, euh, see what I can arrange." He offered his hand to Bush. "That's some mighty fine work you did, Sheriff." "Well, gracias..." ---- :The docks :5 June 1949 :830 hours The sun was bright today, throwing sharpness down on the impossible blue of the sea and even on the muted colors of the Shore Patrol launch. Bush was in his only clean uniform, with even the dress gaucho hat and five-pointed gold star. "Bueno suerte to you, Captain Escobar. And all of you." He shook the hands of all five crewmen, then of Captain Juan C. Escobar himself, and managed a grim smile. "You catch that cabron tiburon and you make him into soup. I've got my beast to catch on land." He sighed. "And now I have to go to a memorial service and explain to seven families what happened to their sons and daughters ... " "You'll get them, Sheriff." Escobar shook his hand firmly, for a man with his injuries. "We're both damn good cazadors--" The captain's eyes widened; looking over Bush's shoulder to the street behind him. "Abajo! ABA--" Crack. Crack. Bush dropped to the dock. The navigator, his head a pink flower as a bullet took him between the eyes. The radioman's scream as he fell from the dock, his stomach red. The choking roar of the boat's main gun. Bush turned his head to see a black Maria FN3 accelerating forward, then tearing into a lamp-post and stopped abruptly as it hit a wall, bursting into heat and fire. The roar above his head abruptly stopped. He rose, acting on instinct, and grabbed a tied-off line, running to where the radioman had fallen. The man floated in a circle of his own blood, looking up at the sheriff with pain-filled eyes. "I need some help here!" Bush started to tie the line to his own waist, the rope rough around his leather belt, then saw The Shape. Every muscle save his arm froze. Bush unholstered his revolver. The black form vanished into the cloud of silt and blood around the crewman. Bush raised his gun, the launch's crew thundering up behind him. The crewman just had time to scream before he vanished. Bush fired once, twice, three times, on either side of the dock. It had been an eternity. It had been about twelve seconds. The radioman's body was never found. ---- Forward to FAN #138F (6 June 1949): Caging the Beast. Return to For All Nails. Category:Walker Bush